Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a small reactor, and a reaction device.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, most of glass reactors, which are small reactors, have flat-plate shapes, as they are formed with a substrate where substrates, to flat surfaces of which groves are formed, are bonded (adhered, welded, or pressure bonded), or a substrate to one side of which a groove is formed is bonded (adhered, welded, or pressure bonded) with cover glass (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-125735).
There is no problem with a flat plate-shaped reactor, when the flat plate-shaped reactor is used for blending a material A and a material B. In the case where a photochemical reaction is performed, for example, it is necessary to uniformly apply light (distance from a light source, illuminance, light intensity) over a surface of the reactor to uniformly allow the reaction to proceed.
To this end, a system for making light even, such as a light-guiding plate, a reflector, and the Fresnel lens, is required when a spherical or cylindrical light source, such as a mercury lamp, is used as a light source. In the case where a semiconductor light source, such as LED, is used, moreover, large numbers of LEDs are arranged on a surface to make light uniform. If these methods are not used, unevenness in illuminance of light is observed in a reactor due to light, which is generally radially applied from a light source. Therefore, problems may occur, such as instability of a reaction (increase in temperature, explosive boiling), under or over reaction, and an increased by-product.